


Where the Heavens Meet the Sky

by Leryline



Series: O, Blessed Be The Herald [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Fluff, Nudity, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, i dont know what to tag this???? basically, trev & cass hate each other but keep getting stuck together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-16 20:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9288014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leryline/pseuds/Leryline
Summary: Cassandra cannot shake her distaste for the Inquisitor; perhaps it is her countenance, her flightiness, her fear. Whatever it is, it strikes Cassandra the wrong way, and she'd rather have nothing to do with her.But a high summer spent on the sweltering prairies of the Exalted Plains may reveal that Cassandra's opinions of the Lady Inquisitor were more misplaced than she'd thought.





	1. The First March

**Author's Note:**

> this is an experiment i guess?????? this is more of a character study than anything, i just wanted to explore some early days of evie & cass's relationship and figured i'd post it here for archiving purposes!!!

She wasn’t used to any of it.

Most of what had happened at the Temple of Sacred Ashes still felt much like a distant dream. It was little more than an echo, now, and yet each night Evelyn still awoke drenched in sweat, the faces of her sisters still haunting her mind. She wasn’t used to being without them, nor without her mother and father, as much as she may have detested their company; in the wake of the mark left upon her hand many were wont to forget that she balanced very delicately on the precipice of womanhood, the naivety and fears of girlishness still clinging to her wits, reluctant to let go.

It had only been a handful of months since that day. Chaos still had Thedas by the throat, throttling it, befalling the land with tragedy after tragedy that all seemed to blend together in a flood of misery. Nothing had gone right since the sky had split open. And yet, Evelyn thought, Blackwall had been right in saying that the Breach was much more difficult to ignore up close, and that the farther away one travelled, the easier it was to pretend. With her back turned to it as they rode along the flat, treeless roads towards the Exalted Plains, she could almost fool herself into thinking that none of this had ever happened at all. But Evelyn had never been one to lie to herself, least of all about things of such gravity.

The company with which she travelled was not a large one. It consisted of no more than fifty soldiers both on foot and steed, and only a handful of cart horses that were used to transport their supplies. It had been Solas who had advised that they travel to the Plains to investigate ancient elven magic - it was imperative, he’d said, considering the nature of the Conclave’s explosion. Evelyn found it difficult to doubt his knowledge; she barely knew him, and she certainly didn’t trust him, and yet a very large part of her believed him when he spoke of things like this. Perhaps it was his voice and how it always remained low and calm, or the way his eyes settled so easily upon hers. Evelyn wasn’t sure what it was, but Solas’s curiosity in the Plains piqued hers as well; between Solas’s insistence and Evelyn’s agreement, the excursion had been put forwards immediately as to take advantage of the lull before events once more came to a head. Besides - Solas saw it as a good opportunity to teach Evelyn more about not only the South’s geography, but of ancient elven lore, which he (rightly) guessed she had not been taught by her tutors back in the Free Marches. As a student, Evelyn had always been eager to learn, and riding beside Solas and listening to all the stories he had to tell was a welcome distraction from their current reality. Cassandra and Varric had been spared from Haven, joining them to form Evelyn’s close guard, and while Varric seemed happy enough to tag along Cassandra made it very clear that the Exalted Plains was the last place she wanted to be.

It was late in the month of Solace, only a few days from midsummer, when they left Haven; high summer was an agreeable time in Ferelden for most travellers, what with its serene weather and clear skies, but the farther the company travelled from Haven the hotter it became until helmets had to be removed from heads and wet cloths wrapped around sweating foreheads instead. The horses panted and strained beneath the combined weight of their riders and the beating of the sun. The heavy armour and leathers made the heat no easier, and the longer the soldiers went on without attack, the more bold they became in allowing their skin to breathe. Varric, especially, had a habit of cramming his heavy mail into the bags of his mount and slathering himself in a sun-salve, despite Cassandra’s biting reminders of the demons that were - as she put it - falling out of the sky.

“Loosen up, Seeker,” he told her irritably. “Your attitude is just getting worse. Sure you’re not roasting alive in there?”

Cassandra only scowled at him and turned her attention away. She was one of the few soldiers who chose to remain tightly-enclosed in their armour, refusing to so much as loosen a button despite the sweat that coursed down her temples, sticking her dark hair to her skin.

Like Cassandra, Evelyn also refused to remove her armour, though it had nothing to do with discipline. She was afraid of removing it, of baring any skin to the world for fear that the lip of a blade should find its way through it; the memories of demons hung about the edges of her vision like black shadows. She’d rather be roasted inside her armour like a stuck pig than take that risk. But luckily, for her, the armour of a rogue was lighter and airier than that of a soldier who carried a sword and shield. Cassandra was not so fortunate.

Their march to the Plains spanned over a week or two, though it felt like a lot less; the road from Haven was steep and hilly, but once they reached the base of the mountains the ground flattened out, and soon the thick forest thinned into prairies that stretched wide and golden right to the horizon. It was farming land, for the most part, that separated them. The fields were flourishing beneath the sun, deep trenches cut into the earth to facilitate the farmers’ irrigation to their crops. Barely a cloud was seen in the sky for days, and by the time a week had passed the company constructed makeshift shades from pikes and yards of canvas from the tents. Both soldier and horse sweated beneath the glare of the sun.

Cassandra did not have much to be content about, as far as she was concerned. Aside from the dreadful heat and incessant sun, she had to put up with Varric’s complaining and snide comments, and with Solas’s determination to reach the Plains before the week’s end. But what was worse was that  _ girl _ , the Herald of Andraste - she rode ahead of Cassandra, beside Solas, her pale hair gleaming so brightly in the sun that Cassandra could barely look at it. She sat hunched in her saddle, her legs still stiff and awkward from lack of experience, and her shoulders curled inwards as if she was trying to hide away from those around her. Evelyn Trevelyan’s entire countenance stuck Cassandra the wrong way; she was flighty and nervous, afraid for reasons that were obvious but hardly excusable. She was happy enough to listen but never spoke, and when she did it was more often than not in a harsh, inhospitable tone, eyes darting about restlessly, fingers clenching and unclenching over the bright gash in her palm. Cassandra hated the way she acted, the way she was distrustful of those she was forced to rely on, but she could do nothing about it. In a way, she understood it; Evelyn was scared of many things that were worth being scared of. Tragedy had befallen a girl who had been cradled by nobility and Chantry teachings; the worse candidate.

“Careful,” Varric warned her in a low voice; Cassandra started slightly, unaware she’d been glaring hard at Evelyn’s back. Varric chuckled beside her. “Stare any harder and you’ll burn holes through her armour.” He paused, then, looking between Cassandra and the Herald. “You really don’t like her, do you?”

Huffing, Cassandra straightened in her saddle and blinked the sweat out of her eyes. “And why ought I?”

“Because she’s the only thing standing between us and the end of the world?”

Cassandra grit her teeth. “That does not mean I have to  _ like  _ her, Varric,” she replied, voice terse. It was surprisingly difficult to keep her temper under control in this heat. Varric shrugged, wiping the back of his sleeve across his forehead.

“Guess so. But it’ll make your life a whole lot easier, Seeker.”

There was no more time to talk. The afternoon had come down to a simmer, the sun boiling red and hot just above the horizon. The world about them was golden, saturated in its colour, otherworldly. It would only be light for a few hours more, giving the parade time enough to set up camp in a nearby field and light the fires before nightfall. Cassandra was grateful for the distraction and set about busying herself with setting up the tents and the cooking spits, and leading the mounts off to graze and drink. And yet she found herself glancing about for the Herald, her eyes searching for that pale hair and those shocking eyes; whenever she caught herself looking she’d turn her face away, focussing again on the task at hand. Evelyn, though, always appeared to be working alone and in complete silence. Sometimes Solas was at her side, or a soldier whose name Cassandra could not remember would offer her help. But Evelyn’s expression remained closed, locked tight as a vault.

Something about the girl was familiar to Cassandra. The way her brow pulled low and dark over her eyes reminded Cassandra of her own youth, back when she was a child, in the days following her brother’s death. Back then she would look at her reflection and see a face that she’d thought was quite singular - now, she realised, it had not been as unique as she’d thought. Grief had worn her own skin thin and pale, had hollowed out each crevice of her face to the point of sickliness. She’d been only a girl. It had been years ago, and to Cassandra those days were long passed, something from a storybook or a tavern song. It was easy enough to forget now that the sorrow had passed… but each time she looked toward Evelyn she was faced with the freshest of wounds. She  _ recognised  _ it. She understood it. It made her skin crawl.

“Cassandra!” She was wrenched from her thoughts by Solas’s voice; turning, she found him standing a short distance away, his long hands folded before him. “Are you almost finished with that spit? The soldiers grow hungry and would like to begin cooking before nightfall.” He nodded toward the cooking pit Cassandra had been tending to, and with a few firm tugs of the metal spit she nodded, stepping away.

Since when had it gotten this late? Cassandra must have been buried in her thoughts for longer than she’d realised. She walked with Solas back to the tents, stepping between groups of soldiers who were resting in the cool sweetgrass. The heat had lost its edge as the sun slipped lazily behind the horizon, the coolness of the evening nothing less than blissful.

“You are to share a tent with Lady Trevelyan,” Solas told her when they came to a stop amidst the tents. “Seeing as you are the most able to protect her should we be attacked during the night.”

Cassandra wrinkled her nose with disgust, folding her arms across her chest just as Varric and the Herald returned from the requisition table. Evelyn’s eyes had trouble resting on Cassandra for more than a few moments - something that did not escape the Seeker’s attention. Varric looked between them with a deep wrinkle between his brows as though he could taste the tension between them; Cassandra was on the defense, her face pinched and arms crossed, and Evelyn looked like she’d rather be anywhere but there.

“Or I could bunk in with her,” he said finally, once the silence had stretched tight enough that he’d fear it would snap. “Seeker, you’re in with Solas. Try not to kill each other. Just for tonight.” With a gruff nod towards Solas, Varric clapped his hand against Evelyn’s elbow.

He had no idea why Cassandra was being so prickly, especially towards Evelyn - what had the girl done? It wasn’t as though she’d plunged into the Fade of her own volition, and Cassandra  _ knew  _ that. So why? Certainly, Evelyn’s standoffishness could be frustrating, but Cassandra had dealt with worse in the past. And she of all people should understand that Evelyn needed time to not only process what had happened at the Conclave, but also her new and rather unwelcome life as the Herald of Andraste. Something she could not escape.

The days following the disaster at the Conclave, Varric had heard Evelyn sobbing through the walls of the keep and on their way to Haven. Not that he blamed her, of course - she’d most likely lost friends and possibly even family in the explosion, and being the lone survivor was a great burden for a Chantry girl to bear. Her pain had been immense - was still immense, surely - and what she needed now was time to heal and harden.

“Don’t mind her,” he told the girl as they sat together that night. Scouts had been sent out during the day to hunt, and had brought back enough vegetables and game from the local farmers to feed all the hungry mouths. “Cassandra’s always had a bit of a stick up her arse. Just ignore it and she’ll come around eventually.”

Evelyn sat on her bedroll, red light slanting across her face from where the torchlight filtered through the canvas, staring down at her hands. She was dressed only in trousers and her shirtsleeves of billowing cotton; even though the material was light, it stuck to her skin, and her sternum glistened with sweat beneath the laces. Varric sighed heavily as he removed his boots and his coat.

“She thinks I did it,” the girl murmured so quietly Varric almost didn’t hear her. “She still thinks I killed Justinia.”

Varric paused in thought. “Maybe she does. Nobody knows what happened up there, not even you. If there’s one thing I know about Cassandra Pentaghast it’s that she needs answers - someone needs to be held accountable for Justinia’s death, and for now it looks like it’s you. Even if she says she thinks you innocent, it’s just how she is. I know it’s not true, and deep down she does too. Just give her time.”

Fidgeting nervously, Evelyn looked up at him. She was such a strange girl, he thought. She had such a strange way of looking at people.

“Is she always like this?” she asked. “I mean… so frigid. At times I wonder if she’s human.”

Varric couldn’t help but burst out laughing at that. “Maker, if I haven’t had that exact thought!” He wiped his face, throwing himself down onto his bedroll and keeping as still as he could to try and catch the draught that fluttered at the lips of their tent. “Aye, she’s human, all right. Takes some time, but you’ll find her somewhere under all that piety and devotion.”

Evelyn’s gaze was riveted, now; she could sense the tale balancing on the tip of his tongue. Cassandra was a woman worth telling stories about, and Varric had many to tell, especially about what had happened in Kirkwall. But, he realised, her stories weren’t his to tell; if Evelyn was going to discover the true, raw woman beneath Cassandra Pentaghast’s armour, she’d have to do it herself. He waved a broad hand at her, swiping it through the heat-thickened air before letting it settle over his eyes, revelling in the cool darkness. “Let’s at least try and sleep, girlie, before my face melts off in this damned heat.”

Though he couldn’t see her, he heard the shuffling of her bedroll, and he could have sworn he almost heard a laugh.


	2. Prairie-Bound

Varric was awoken the next morning by a crushing pressure against his chest. He blearily opened his eyes, blinking a few times to unstick his eyelids; his skin felt grimy and strangely prickly, and the pressure, he found out, was not due to someone’s boot weighing down against his chest. Instead, it was caused by the stifling heat, which had risen like a choking fog even despite the early hour. He expected the heat to only rise further as the day wore on, and it was hardly an enticing thought.

His body was heavy as he hauled himself into a sitting position, lifting the hem of his nightshirt to wipe the sweat from beneath his nose. Damn it, he really should have just stayed in Haven. The mild weather hovered in his memory like a mirage. Rubbing the image from his mind, he got to his feet and felt around groggily for his boots, casting a haphazard glance towards where the Herald still lay on her bedroll.

The red light from the night before was not so fierce, now. Torchlight had been replaced by the weak early-morning sun, the red canvas casting a pleasant pink light across the interior of the tent. Evelyn lay on her side, curled in toward the side of the tent with her back to Varric, a triangle of sweat plunging down the length of her spine from where she’d sweated through the night. Varric paused for a moment, looking at her, noticing that her arms were wrapped around herself far too tightly for her to be asleep.

“I know you’re awake, girlie,” he rumbled as he tugged on his boots. “Can’t fool me. Why don’t you go outside? Eat something? No point sweltering away in here. The whole place smells like…” he sniffed the air inside the tent that, despite the tied-open flaps of the canvas to allow the breeze, remained pungent. “Sweaty dwarf, actually.”

Evelyn was still for a few long moments; eventually she glanced over her shoulder almost sheepishly, like a child caught by her mother, and lifted herself onto her knees. Her hair stuck to her neck and her high cheekbones gleamed in the translucent pink light.

“Wait,” began Varric after he’d pulled on one boot, leaving the other foot bare and focussing his attention solely on the Herald’s tight posture. “Don’t tell me you’re too nervous to go outside alone?”

“I’m not!” Evelyn bit back before she could stop herself - she bit her tongue right after and retreated back into her tight-lipped expression. Varric couldn’t help but laugh harshly - but not unkindly - at that.

“You _are_.” He watched as her gaze flickered toward the camp outside the tent; the camp had already begun to stir, the sound of sleepy voices and boots rising about them, the patrols changing over and those exhausted from the night watch collapsing into their bedrolls for a few hours of much-needed rest. Evelyn’s expression seemed to retreat even further into itself, and she returned her gaze to her knees. Varric felt a twinge of sympathy in his chest. Of course she’d be anxious. Of course she’d be. So instead of teasing her about it as he was inclined to do, he yanked on his other boot and donned his jacket. “I’ll come out with you. I could use with some food anyway, what d’you say?”

The tension in the tent was flooded with relief, and Evelyn nodded, scrambling to pull on her own boots and following Varric out of the tent.

“Sleep well?” Solas asked when Varric and Evelyn found him at the heart of the camp, poring over a map of the Plains that had been spread over the requisition table. Solas hardly looked as though he’d even slept; in fact, the thought of Solas _ever_ sleeping was as strange a thought to Evelyn as a nug wearing a wig. Stranger, even. Varric replied in the form of a groan, complaining of the heat and the unevenness of the ground, to which Solas only smiled serenely, unruffled as he always was.

It was that kind of regularity that comforted Evelyn. Varric never seemed to change; his reactions had grown predictable and reassuring, as had Solas’s unflappable temperament, and those things were soothing when all else continued to change. The tightness in her shoulders began to release, if only a little.

“I wish to travel to Halin'suhlan,” Solas told them, his long finger finding its way across the map and pointing at a twisted area of the parchment. It was disconcertingly far away from their camp. “It is far, and I believe it would be safer to follow this path -,” he traced his finger down along a narrow, winding road that arched out toward the west before turning inwards once more. “And we shall cross the river, which I believe will be a good opportunity to regather our strength after the march.”

Varric was quick to voice his dislike of the distance, and while Evelyn agreed with him, her curiosity overwhelmed her. Solas smiled at her approvingly, though it was a small smile, a private one. Hesitantly, she smiled back.

Cassandra was nowhere to be found. She’d gone out with the scouts, Solas told them, even though Cassandra had never shown any interest in scouting before. She returned just as the company were packing up the camp, her shield flashing in the sunlight, her face already gleaming with sweat. She gave Varric a hard glare when she returned to them, her eyes flicking to Solas, and finally to Evelyn, who stood only half-dressed, her linen scarf hanging unravelled around her neck, revealing the hollow of her throat, the flesh glistening and vulnerable. She looked away quickly.

The march fell quickly into step again. They were fully enveloped within the Plains by midday, the land stretching out before them; the path they followed avoided the forested areas, which were thick with bandits and rebel apostates who had taken to the ancient elvish ruins for refuge. The ground was undulating, swelling and dipping as though the earth itself was laid over the back of a god’s knuckles, great spires of rock rising from the land. It was inspiring of awe in a rugged, bare sort of way, the same sort of awe that had been inspired in Evelyn’s heart the first time she’d travelled out into her father’s farmland estate in the southern reaches of the Free Marches, back when the maize was ready to harvest and stretched out before her like a golden, shimmering sea.

Varric insisted on slathering his sun-salve all over the skin Evelyn left uncovered. He expressed a special concern towards her, muttering about the delicacy of her skin as his broad, rough fingers rubbed the salve in beneath her eyes and over the shells of her ears as though she was only a young girl, cursing her weathered upbringing and the Marchers’ vulnerability to the hard sun. Evelyn let him fuss - in a way she enjoyed it. He fussed over her much like her chambermaids used to in Ostwick, tugging and prodding and clicking their tongues in the same strange, rough fondness that was often borne from pity. Perhaps Varric _did_ pity her, but if he did, it was certainly something she could live with. This, Evelyn thought, was because he didn’t pity her as one would pity a beggar, but instead the way an older brother would pity the vulnerability of a younger sibling. It reminded her of the way a mother cat comforted its young with a rough lick behind the ear.

“You ought not coddle her, Varric,” chastised Cassandra, her dark brows knitted in displeasure. “She is not a baby.”

Varric dismissed her with a scoff. “Come now, Seeker! What would the rest of Thedas say if they lost their one hope of salvation to sun-stroke?”

 

* * *

 

The journey through the Plains was draining. They marched from sunrise to sundown, stopping only briefly when the sun was at its highest to rest and drink. They set up camp by a cluster of stone crags jutting into the sky like fingers, guards stationed around the camp to watch the prairies for threats. The wide-open emptiness of the Plains was disconcerting, even more so than the thickest of woodland. Here they could not hide or sneak. Each move they made was viewable to all, and it set everybody on edge, Cassandra most of all. For the first time since they’d set off the dawn was welcome.

The next day was no easier. Even though the heat had seemed unbearable the day before it had somehow gotten even worse; no matter how often the soldiers mopped the sweat from their brows they still seemed to be drenched in it minutes later. Their stops became more frequent, especially when the horses began to fail under the heat, and while Solas remained impervious to the weather he was considerate enough to allow the soldiers rest without objection.

Evelyn was flagging, perhaps worse than anybody else in the party. She was not used to riding such distances, nor was she used to such extended exposure to the sun. She was the weakest, the slowest, the most easily exhausted, and it was beginning to show. It was something she tried to mask, but Varric noticed the limp in her step from the blisters that pained her and the hazy fatigue that settled over her as the day wore on. She kept her head bowed, her brow low, a handkerchief dampened with water clenched in her fist.

Varric told her they could stop and rest. Each time he offered she would insist she was fine.

It was mid-afternoon when the company was finally thrown into disarray. The one comfort they’d had was the monotonous rhythm of their march: it was a matter of putting one foot after the other. It required no thought, no conscious effort, and once one fell into the haze of the routine it was all relatively easy. But as they breached the crest of a hill and gazed out across the simmering stretch of land they caught the undeniable sight of magic - _bad_ magic - bursting across the grass.

“Blood mages,” Solas murmured in a low voice, eyes narrowing as he reached for his staff. “Apostates. I should have known - ready yourselves, for I hardly expect them to be hospitable.”

Nobody had been ready for it - they were supposed to be ready for such an attack, but the heat had loosened them, slackened them, lowered their defences until they were as pliable and as unsuspecting as wax. The sudden burst of panic scattered them like marbles; the soldiers clustered into messy groups, splitting off in different directions under Cassandra’s orders. They must have interrupted some sort of ritual - there were more mages there than there should have been, and even Evelyn - who had barely any experience in battle - was forced to fight.

Cassandra had tried - and failed - to teach Evelyn the way of the sword and shield. While Evelyn’s reflexes were quick her skill with daggers was unremarkable. She was no fighter, at least not yet, but her aim with a bow was not terrible, and so she had been bestowed with a sturdy prototype from Harritt before they’d left Haven. It kept her out of the thick of the fighting, too, while allowing her to deal significant damage should her shot be aimed right.

Battle always had a particular scent; urine and sweat and shit and blood hung pungent in the air even in the briefest of battles, and this one was no different. Evelyn was still not used to it and it made her sick to her stomach, bile rising in her throat only to be forced back down again, causing her own blood to boil as though the adrenaline pounding through her comrades’ veins was contagious. Her vision sharpened, catching sight of enemies flickering around the edges of her vision and making any attacks at her flanks easy to parry; it was easy enough to surrender her body to instinct and reflex.

Evelyn wasn’t sure how she ended up separated from the rest of the group. One moment the din of battle roared loud and immediate in her ears, and the next moment the glint of armour flashed like a mirror in the distance and the sounds rose like distant thunder. It was a disconcerting sound.

It was so _hard_ to fight like that - Evelyn found herself caught between a handful of apostates, half a dozen daggers directed at her throat, an unexpected enemy found in the sun as it pounded down atop her head and drained her strength. Her vision began to swim, sweat coursing down each inch of her body and into her eyes to the point where she could barely see. Her breath rose high and rapid in her throat as the daggers flashed impossibly bright -

And yet there was no sting of metal meeting the soft skin of her throat. The sharp jabs were blocked by the strong front of a shield or parried by the lip of a sword, both of them seeming to enclose her. Protect her.

“Fool!” was the only thing Cassandra was able to force out before she whirled around again, sinking the edge of her blade deep into the midsection of one of the mages; blood sprayed up the length of her arm as she sliced through an artery, the mage’s body crumpling to the ground in a heap of glistening flesh and coarse black robes. It gave Evelyn enough time to gather her wits and shoot her arrowheads into the unsuspecting throats of the remaining mages, cleaning off whichever apostates Cassandra left unfinished.

They stood there, breathing hard, hearts hammering. Cassandra looked ready to faint; her face was splattered with viscera, her dark hair drenched with sweat and the tip of her sword trailing in the dirt churned by their battle. For a few minutes she could focus on nothing but regaining her breath and quieting the pounding in her ears.

She was only brought back to reality by the sound of Evelyn being violently sick a few feet away.

Cassandra’s shield fell to the dirt alongside her sword so she could catch the girl before she fell, bile splashing over her glove as she held Evelyn’s chin high to minimise mess. The other arm locked around her waist, keeping her on her feet, the line of her body unbearably hot against Cassandra’s own. She could feel the heat even through her armour.

It was a reflex for Cassandra to catch a fallen comrade. Evelyn shook in her arms, her teeth chattering, her hair falling loose around her face and accentuating the green tint around her eyes. Making a disgusted noise in the back of her throat, Cassandra hauled the girl upright and half-carried her away from the carnage of the slaughtered mages, slinging her shield back across her shoulders and sheathing her sword. Evelyn’s eyes were shut tight and she refused to open them until Cassandra promised the bodies were gone. Maker, even new recruits didn’t react like this - some of them were sick, certainly, but at least they retained some semblance of dignity while doing it. Evelyn, on the other hand, was sick and pale and shaking.

“Pull yourself together,” Cassandra told her brusquely. “You cannot afford to be affected by such things.”

Evelyn didn’t appear to have heard her. But for Cassandra, that was turning out to be the least of their problems; she had been so consumed with getting Evelyn away from the bodies that she hadn’t realised they’d become completely separated from the rest of the company. There was no sight of them, no sound. Had the battle ended? Surely they would send out scouts. She had no idea how far they had strayed, and she knew that she could not afford to leave Evelyn alone for long enough to search on her own, and that the Herald was in no state to go with her. Pained, Cassandra looked back towards where Evelyn sat on the sun-warmed face of a boulder with her face in her hands.

It became easier to manoeuvre Evelyn towards the shade as her wits returned to her. It was as though she was stunned by some sort of spell, though Cassandra knew the girl had no traces of magic on her, rendering her as useless as a newborn. But slowly Evelyn began to breathe again, slow and deep, her fingers grasping at Cassandra’s wrists as she shook her head to and fro as though trying to rid herself of the memories.

“Where are we?” asked Evelyn as soon as she was ready to speak; Cassandra turned to face her from where she’d been squinting out over the land to try and catch sight of their party.

“I have no idea. It appears we were separated from the others during our encounter with the blood mages.”

Evelyn blanched a little and turned her gaze away. Clearly the prospect of being without the others unnerved her - it unnerved Cassandra, too, especially considering the gravity of Evelyn’s entire existence. She could not let the girl die. But she would rather starve to death then let Evelyn catch on to her own uncertainty, and so she set her jaw like stone and stalked towards her, one hand gripping the hilt of her sword. “We must find somewhere to settle until the Inquisition scouts find us,” she said, and Evelyn nodded, getting unsteadily to her feet. She looked as though she had a hundred questions to ask. She asked none of them.

They found refuge in the shadow of a cluster of finger-like crags. They rose high, simmering in the heat, sun-hardened sprigs of brambles bursting from the veins in the rock. The world was silent and still about them, the only sound being the shrieking of cicadas nestled in the grass. The heat forced them to do nothing but sit in the shade; they refused to talk and the tension stretched taut between them, worsened by Cassandra’s anger at being stuck with Evelyn, and by Evelyn’s restlessness at the notion of being alone with nobody but Cassandra. She _knew_ the Seeker was not fond of her. It wasn’t as though Cassandra made any great efforts to hide the fact.

Nightfall crawled slowly toward them, bringing with it both the relief of the sunset and the fear of being alone in the darkness. The two women maintained their distance even despite the reflexive urge to gather together - it was some sort of survival instinct. Cassandra grew restless as the sun lowered toward the horizon; there’d been no sight of the Inquisition agents, and her stomach was gnawing at her, her entire body weighed down with fatigue.

“We must eat,” she said aloud, not intending for Evelyn to hear. “We have done too much to warrant going hungry.” Her grip tightened on the hilt of her sword, as though to say _but how can I hunt with this? I could not hope to outrun a halla._

It was then Evelyn spoke in that soft, strange voice of hers. “I could… I could shoot something.”

Cassandra was not fond of the idea, but she was even less fond of going hungry, and so she sat silently by as Evelyn closeted herself between the folds of rock and nocked an arrow. It was odd to watch her; her brow did not furrow even despite her intense concentration, and for a moment she appeared to forget the world around her, her attention narrowing to focus only on the lean-legged halla grazing a distance away. The shot was fast and quiet and was undoubtedly the best one Cassandra had ever seen her land. The halla fell like a sack of stones, the bright feathers of the arrow rippling in the still prairie air. When she did not move to retrieve it, however, Cassandra stood up.

“You can do it,” Evelyn said in a high, shaking voice. “I… ah. You are probably better at carving meat than I.” And then she was gone, pushing past Cassandra before the Seeker could say so much as a word in reply, disappearing back around the crags again and leaving Cassandra to retrieve the corpse.

As she skinned and gutted the halla, Cassandra allowed herself to think. It was a liberty she did not take often - after all, she had always had a tendency to overthink things, but there was something about Evelyn that intrigued her, as loathe as she was to admit it. She disliked her intently, that much was certain, and yet there was something in her voice and her eyes and her skin that made her curious, something about the deep tone of her voice and the way her fingers itched at her side when she grew anxious. Something about her fear interested Cassandra in ways she knew it shouldn’t.

For one, Cassandra was well aware that those new to battle often reacted negatively to the reality of killing. The act of killing was never a pleasant one: it looked bad, smelled bad, and felt bad, and the sight of guts and dismembered body parts were not kind on the weak-stomached. But after all Evelyn had seen between both the Fade and the world of the living, surely she would have been stronger. _Surely_. It made Cassandra angry for reasons she couldn’t place, and she hated it. All of it.

Sweat drenched her to the skin as she finished slicing the meat from the bones. This halla was not young and its flesh was sinewy and hard, but it was better than nothing, and Cassandra returned to their makeshift camp with a few choice cuts. Evelyn was already setting about crafting some sort of fire pit; she clearly had no survival skills, but Cassandra couldn’t help but be impressed by her ingenuity considering it. Evelyn refused to look at her when she returned, and if there was one thing Cassandra hated above all else, it was being ignored.

“I do not understand it,” she forced out between clenched teeth. “ _You_ , the one who fell from the Fade itself after witnessing its untold horrors, cannot bear to see a halla skinned?” The question sounded almost snide even though Cassandra hadn’t meant it so. Evelyn pushed the hair back from her face, blood caked beneath her fingernails and in the creases of her nose, her face flushing with both shame and anger at the Seeker’s question.

“Forgive me,” the girl replied bitterly. “But some of us were not trained in violence from youth.. _Some_ of us do not witness the art of killing on a daily basis.” The way she’d said _art_ was cutting. Cassandra struggled to bite back her anger. _Such petulance,_ she thought.

The Seeker’s lips pulled back from her teeth in something of a cruel sneer, and she laughed a cruel laugh, asking, “Andraste’s own Herald cannot stomach the sight of a halla’s corpse. Imagine.”

It was hurtful and she knew it. And yet she’d said it all the same, using it as a facet to release her own anger both at Evelyn for being _weak_ and at the entire world for being _broken_. What hope was there for the torn sky if their supposed saviour could not even bear to look at a dead animal? The premise, to Cassandra, was ridiculous. Evelyn looked up at her with an injured, tight-lipped expression, still a little sickly round the eyes, all the colour drained from her lips. Ah… there was that look again. The one Cassandra recognised. Guilt began to settle like cold hail in her gut.

“I never asked for this,” Evelyn began in a quiet, shaking voice that rapidly rose to a shout, all her pressurised grief and anxiety coming to a boiling head upon her tongue. “I asked for none of this! Please, cut my hand from the wrist and take it with you! I’d rather you solve this whole mess without me, trust me I do. But what choice do I have? What choice do _we_ have?!”

An empty wind rattled between the spires of rock in the silence that followed, Evelyn’s voice sinking into the earth like blood. Cassandra hadn’t realised how dark it had gotten. She stood there, stunned into silence at the Herald’s outburst. She’d never reacted so strongly to anything before, and so to see such an unexpected burst of passion was as unsettling as it was admirable. Taking a deep breath, Evelyn set about lighting their fire before the darkness became impervious, and neither Seeker nor Herald exchanged a word for the rest of the night.

 

* * *

 

The ground was hard and difficult to sleep on. Bedrolls were worse than beds, but they were leagues better than the bare ground; admittedly, the grass allowed some cushioning, but the blades were dry and tough and there always seemed to be a rock lodged somewhere Cassandra couldn’t quite reach.

She and Evelyn watched over each other in shifts. Evelyn offered to watch first, allowing Cassandra a few hours of much-needed rest, despite her not trusting Evelyn’s ability should an enemy come across them. The Seeker suffered a shallow, dreamless slumber for a few hours before she was woken by a warm palm at her throat. She jerked awake, half believing she was being attacked and closing her fist tight around Evelyn’s wrist. When she realised who it was, however, she let go, and they silently changed over, Evelyn settling down in the deep shadow where the earth met the rock, using her arm to cushion her head and turning her back to Cassandra.

A blustery wind picked up sometime during the night. It blew hot and dry over the plain, rustling the brambles and upsetting the insects so they rose from the grass in a buzzing haze; somehow even the sky was lighter during the summer than it was in Haven - or, indeed, the rest of Thedas - and the moon sat heavy and full at its crown. Every now and again Cassandra would check on Evelyn to make sure she’d not been dragged off by a wolf - every time she’d look she would find Evelyn curled upon her side, the spools of her spine visible at the back of her neck, catching the moonlight.

There was a lot of time to think during the night watch, and Cassandra had a lot of thinking to do. She’d avoided it, of course, ever since the Conclave. There was simply too much to think about between Justinia’s death and the Herald’s crumbling on the battlefield. And yet there was a theme: death, and dying, and killing. The ending of life as a whole.

Again her thoughts turned to her days as a Seeker, back when she’d first began training at Montsimmard. Even then she had been exposed to death and killing beforehand - what with the execution of her parents and her brother - and so her first real fight had not affected her as strongly as it had some of the other recruits. Vaguely, she remembered a few of them going a little green and some of them excusing themselves and escaping the sight of the carcasses. But none of them had reacted as viscerally as Evelyn had. They had been _strong,_ after all.

 _I asked for none of this!_ Ah, yes, and there was the difference between Evelyn Trevelyan and the Seeker recruits - those young men and women had signed up for a life of servitude to the order, had dedicated their lives to killing in the name of justice. They had known what to expect and had been ready for it. Evelyn, on the other hand, had been destined for a life in the Chantry, planning to split apart books instead of skulls. A Chantry girl - a _noble_ Chantry girl, at that - had no hope of weathering the horrors of war with a strong stomach. The more Cassandra thought about it the more sense it made, and she grew irritated at herself for having leapt to such an ignorant conclusion so fast. _But what did she see in the Fade?_ she wondered, recalling the girl’s hallowed and tear-stained appearance in the prison beneath the Temple’s ruins when they had first met. She had been weak, shaking like a leaf, pale and sweating and sick. That sort of thing did not stem from mere exhaustion.

Again Cassandra glanced at the girl. Again she saw the same sight. But this time her gaze lingered but a second longer, her eyes following the panels of leather down the girl’s back, catching sight of a few pale, long fingers grasping at a sleeve in sleep. Gritting her teeth, she turned away.

Part of her laughed at such introspection. _Cassandra Pentaghast, introspection?!_ it demanded incredulously; but another part of her was glad for it.

She recalled the Necropolis of Nevarra. Death and dying were so different, she realise:; in death all was peaceful, a world of stone tombs and bones laid to rest. But dying, in the world she knew, was often a loud affair, and was always full of pain. Evelyn had seen death before, that much was not to be disputed, but Cassandra had a feeling she had not witnessed dying.

It felt like only a few minutes later that Evelyn rolled to her feet, sleepy and looking barely older than a maiden, blinking tiredly out over the empty prairie as she went to relieve Cassandra of her post.

“Sleep,” the Seeker told her, unable to keep the irritation from her voice. “I am not yet tired, so I shall watch a little longer.” Evelyn did not argue; she only bobbed her head a little in thanks, and soon the sound of her breathing became one with the rush of the grass.


	3. Unwelcome Thoughts

Evelyn was woken by a boot to the back.

In part she was glad for it. It was a much needed release from her uneven sleep and the dreams that haunted her. But, of course, it was never pleasant to be kicked awake, as restrained as the nudges to her spine were. When she rose she found that it was just before dawn, a lilac haze settled low over the grass, the sky only just beginning to grow light enough to see. Before Evelyn could so much as blink the sleep from her eyes Cassandra had a hand locked around her arm and was hauling her to her feet. The Herald managed to slur out a few words of alarm.

“I can see scouts,” Cassandra told her crisply, leaving the girl to brush herself free of grass and dirt and to pick the sticks out of her hair. “They must have been sent out before dawn.”

That was enough to wake Evelyn up. They snuffed out the embers that still burned in the pit, scattering the evidence of their passing as best they could before heading out to meet the scouts in the middle of the prairie. The soldiers, bearing the insignia of the Inquisition, were relieved to find them, and led them back a number of miles to the Inquisition’s camp. They truly must have wandered farther than Cassandra had thought; the sun had already crested the horizon by the time they reached the camp. Varric was the first to meet them there, out of breath and already shouting Cassandra an earful before they’d so much as entered earshot.

Evelyn couldn’t get away from Cassandra fast enough. Ever since their argument the night before, the tension was enough to strangle her. As soon as they reached the camp Evelyn slipped away through the soldiers, leaving Cassandra to placate Varric and fill them in on what had happened. For now, all she wanted was some time to herself to try and give some semblance of order to her muddled mind, and she certainly couldn’t do that without solitude.

Everything was moving so fast. Since the few short months since the Conclave’s destruction, Evelyn had been forced to do things she’d never dreamed of doing. Logically she knew that killing enemies was necessary - she had to kill them lest they killed  _ her _ , in turn, and it was all a show of base instinct. She was never meant to do things like this - killing wasn’t in her nature, and while she could perform well under duress and when her life was in danger, she couldn’t help the thoughts that came afterwards. All the henchmen and foot soldiers she had lain her blade and her arrows into were not so unlike her, were they? They were considered nobodies, and yet they had families, loved ones and lives to which they’d hoped to return. The thought inspired a surge of power inside her that lasted only for a few moments before dropping cold and hard through her gut, shattering into a particular kind of guilt that remained with her for days.

The guilt was the hardest thing to bear. Back in Ostwick she’d had her brothers and sisters to confide in, with whom she could share her guilt and her shame. It always helped lighten her heart, but now most of her siblings were dead, wiped out in the explosion that ruined the Temple of Sacred Ashes. The memory was one she’d been avoiding - thinking of it now was enough to make her breath hitch in her throat and her eyes burn dangerously hot.

She made her way to the other side of the camp, settling into the shade behind the tents and picking at a few tough tufts of grass. The heat was a little more bearable when she sat still, the hot breeze glancing across her skin, and it was far too easy to fall into a lull of silence. When she’d been preparing for her initiation into the Chantry sisterhood she would often take moments like these multiple times a day, sitting alone in meditation or in prayer. Much remained the same; the rigidness of her spine was no different than it had been before, nor was the set of her shoulders, or the way her eyes fell to the ground. The calmness that settled over her was familiar, and in that, it was a comfort.

She did not hear Solas approach.

“Evelyn.” He was one of the only people - aside from Varric, naturally - who called her by her name, and the sound of it was shocking, as though someone had cast cold water over her neck. Evelyn started, her eyes jerking towards him, though when she saw who had spoken she could not help but relax. “I could not help but notice your absence. Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she answered reflexively even though it was not true. But that was what she’d learned about Solas - her words didn’t have to be true for him to understand their meaning.

And then Solas did something she didn’t expect: he folded his long legs beneath himself and sat down beside her, his back straight, gazing out towards the mountainous horizon. “We were very worried when you and Cassandra went missing. Something happened while you were gone, that much is apparent, but I shall not push you to speak of it if you do not wish to.”

Evelyn paused. She shook the dry soil from the roots of a grass tuft she’d pulled, busying herself with the task of parting the fibres until her tongue lost its stiffness enough for her to speak. “It was not important,” she offered weakly. “Merely an argument. It’s nothing to worry about.”

Turning his eyes from the mountains, Solas looked at her, his expression alight with curiosity. She purposefully avoided his gaze, her pulling of the grass becoming a little more aggressive as she tried to swallow down all the emotions those memories had begun to draw from her.

“Nothing,” he echoed. “If it was truly nothing then you would not be so affected.”

It did not take much effort to make her snap. “We argued about… killing things. We were separated from the rest of you because of a bunch of apostates, and either we killed them or they killed us. I… did not react very well to it. Cassandra was angry at my weakness.”

He could hear the way her tone splintered at the back of her throat. “I do not think it was weakness, if it is of any comfort.”

“Then what was it?” Her question was sharp. Hard. Unsettled.

“A lack of experience. Unlike Cassandra you were not trained to kill others, even if in search of justice. This seems to have unsettled you greatly.”

Evelyn huffed with laughter. The sound was humourless. “Perhaps. I don’t particularly appreciate her being so… dismissive. As though I am a  _ child _ .” Twisting her face into a frown, Evelyn yanked free a tuft of grass, spraying both herself and Solas with gritty dirt, and threw it a little distance away where it flopped harmlessly to the ground. “I don’t like cutting people apart. It makes me feel sick.”

Solas’s eyes lingered on the grass a few moments longer. “I understand Varric has already told you this, but I believe that Cassandra will only be moved by time. She will come to realise things eventually, I am sure. You must be patient.”

The girl smiled grimly, looking towards him and, for the first time since the Conclave, felt a little at peace. “Solas?”

The elf looked towards her as he brushed the dirt from his knee.

“Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so agitated before, Seeker,” Varric remarked in a voice that was, as far as Cassandra was concerned, far too amused. “It’s really quite extraordinary.”

She wanted to snap at him, but she wasn’t going to give Varric the satisfaction. So she remained silent, pacing back and forth in front of the officers’ tents. Varric sat in the shade of the requisition table smoking a long pipe, watching her and making the odd comment every now and again. “What’s got you so pissed off, anyway?”

Again, she refused to reply.

“Oh, no. Don’t tell me something happened between you and Peaches.”

“ _ Peaches _ ?” she demanded, her head wrenching up from where she’d been staring hard at the ground. “You gave  _ her  _ one of your ridiculous nicknames?!”

Varric spread his hands and looked at her like it was the most obnoxious question in the world. “Of course I did. Every time I look at the kid I think of peaches - all soft and pink, you know, not tough at all.”

Frustrated, Cassandra only groaned. That was  _ just  _ what she needed - for Varric to give the Herald some little pet name.  _ Peaches _ . Maker, she hated it - it wasn’t as if she didn’t have enough to think about already.

Cassandra would never admit that each and every thought that had entered her head since she and Evelyn had returned to the camp had been of  _ her _ . Of Evelyn. Some of them had to do with what had happened on the prairie, with their argument and the tension. But some thoughts were baseless; sometimes Cassandra caught herself thinking back on the line of Evelyn’s spine as she slept, the way the creases of worry and sorrow in her face evened out in slumber. Thoughts like those… they had no reason to be floating around in her mind. She had no excuse for thinking those things. And yet… they could not be helped. No matter how well she tried to guard against them they never failed to seep in through the cracks.

Varric had no qualms in telling her how uncharacteristically angry she was about the whole thing. “So what,” he’d said in a drawl. “She was sick after seeing some apostates hacked to death. You can be real messy for a Seeker, you know that? I don’t blame her, poor kid.” He shook his head in sympathy and took a long drag from his pipe.

He watched her for the rest of the afternoon. Cassandra’s anger did not fade, and he was glad that Evelyn had sense enough to avoid her whenever she could. But that didn’t mean she ignored her; he’d often catch the girl watching Cassandra as she sparred with some of the other soldiers, or when she took up her new and quite unusual habit of pacing. Cassandra, while usually being one of the most perceptive people Varric knew, never noticed the Herald watching her. Or, maybe, she was just ignoring it. Varric couldn’t be sure.

Cassandra’s stange distractedness lasted well into the next day. Instead of riding abreast with Varric she chose to fall back to the tail-end of the march, keeping entirely to herself with her head bowed and eyes focussed on nothing in particular. Was she avoiding Evelyn…? The girl herself wasn’t talking much, though she was hardly very chatty otherwise; she rode with stooped shoulders as though she was ashamed of something, and the more Varric watched her the more curious he became.

It took him about half a day to ask Solas about it.

The elf relayed what Evelyn had told him without any argument. Varric could do little more than nod in thought; he used the rest of the day to stew over it and wonder why Evelyn’s reaction to the gore had angered Cassandra so much. Cassandra, while passionate, was not one to anger without reason, and he knew this. So why…?

He realised it all rather suddenly.

_ She’s confused.  _ Cassandra was the type of person who grew frustrated by things she did not understand, and Evelyn appeared to be one such things.

Actually, now that he thought about it, there was a lot about Evelyn she didn’t understand. That they  _ all  _ didn’t understand. There was a kind of worldly knowledge about her, the insatiable need to  _ learn _ things, and yet she was so unduly afraid of… well, everything. Solas seemed to understand the knowledge part, and Varric certainly understood her fear, though it seemed that Cassandra understood neither, and it was making her angry.  _ Perhaps frustrated is a better way of putting it, _ Varric thought with some amusement; it would, at least, be interesting to see where this led. Cassandra was never one to let things lie, after all, and he had a feeling that she would hound the Herald’s existence until she understood it.

So Cassandra was frustrated by Evelyn’s mystery. Where she was from, who she was, what she wanted, it was all a mystery that the girl seemed content to keep to herself. But there was more there - not just frustration, but  _ anger _ .

_ Easy _ , Varric thought as he watched Evelyn hand her flask of water and her handkerchief to Solas.  _ Cassandra doesn’t like being wrong, especially when she knows she’s in over her head.  _ That’s  _ what’s making her angry. She doesn’t like people who aren’t to her level, especially not in battle, so it doesn’t help that Peaches has the combat skills of a Chantry mouse. _ He chuckled to himself at the thought and shook his head.

He couldn’t really blame her for her distractedness, either; they were all thinking about Evelyn. How could they not? She had fallen from the Fade with a tear in her palm that could close Rifts and kill demons, and became their only hope for stopping the world being swallowed up by a hole in the sky. It was almost impossible  _ not  _ to think about her. But she was nothing like the heros of Varric’s books, and he - as a writer - thought her a little tasteless in that respect. He made a note to teach her the graces of a hero, because as things stood she was little more than a frightened, pale-eyed nobleman’s daughter. Hardly hero material at all.

But Cassandra did not think about her the same as the others did. She thought of the mark, of course, and of the Breach and the Rifts and the demons - those things were easy enough to handle. Natural, almost. But her thoughts strayed often to those  _ other  _ things, things unconcerned with the disaster at hand. They were not thoughts of the Herald, but of Evelyn Trevelyan herself, and they unsettled her. She tried to reassure herself that the others thought about such things as well, but even then she couldn’t be sure. Did they follow Evelyn with their eyes the same way she did? Varric did, though he did so more out of a fatherly concern than anything, as did Solas. She’d caught a few of the soldiers watching her, too, though their gazes were not on the Herald, but on a fair-faced young woman who had the potential to rend the hearts of many a young brigadier without even realising it.

Horrified, Cassandra caught herself. A  _ fair-faced young woman _ ? Where in the name of Andraste had  _ that  _ come from? She jerked her head up to look past the company in front of her, to where Evelyn’s hair gleamed in the sunlight, her face turned slightly to the side as she listened to something Solas said. The sun glanced off the tip of her nose. Long eyelashes. Full lips. A slender neck that was entirely too vulnerable -

Cassandra only realised she’d slowed her mount to a stop when one of the scouts at the back of the group turned around and called out to her, jerking her away from her thoughts. She clicked her tongue, spurring her mount to a short trot so she could catch up to the rest of her soldiers.

She offered a brief prayer to the Maker and resolved to never think those kinds of thoughts again.


End file.
